Registered Mandates for Juristic and Multi-Signatory Accounts
DebiCheck was designed around a single account holder approving a mandate on their phone or at an ATM. That model breaks down for business accounts: a company account has no single natural person who can authenticate, and a multi-signatory account requires more than one person to approve any instruction. Registered mandates exist largely to solve this problem.
If you collect from businesses — insurance premiums, rentals, subscriptions, trade accounts — registered mandates are usually the strongest rail available for those payers.
Why can't DebiCheck authenticate juristic accounts?
DebiCheck authentication is a real-time interaction between the payer's bank and the account holder, typically via USSD, banking app or ATM. For that to work, the bank needs one identifiable person with authority to approve the mandate on the spot. Juristic and multi-signatory accounts fail this requirement:
- Juristic (company) accounts belong to a legal entity, not a person. There is no single cellphone number that represents the company's authority.
- Multi-signatory accounts require two or more signatories to approve transactions. A single real-time authentication cannot capture multiple approvals.
- Some individual payers also cannot authenticate — they may not have a cellphone, or authentication attempts may repeatedly fail or expire.
For the DebiCheck authentication flow itself, see Mandate Authentication.
How do registered mandates solve this?
The Registered Mandate Service registers the mandate details at the payer's bank without requiring electronic approval. The bank records the mandate and notifies the account holder of the registration, but no authentication takes place.
For a juristic account, this means:
- The company signs your contract and debit order mandate through its normal internal approval process — resolutions, authorised signatories, procurement sign-off, whatever the entity requires.
- You register the mandate at the company's bank through RMS.
- The bank notifies the account holder that the mandate has been registered.
- You collect against the registered mandate, with early-window processing and tracking for available funds for up to ten days.
The authority question is answered by your underlying mandate document, not by a real-time bank interaction. That makes it essential that the mandate is properly executed by people with authority to bind the entity.
What should a juristic mandate include?
Everything in the minimum mandate requirements applies, with extra care on authority:
- The registered name and registration number of the entity being debited.
- The names and capacities of the signatories accepting the mandate.
- Confirmation that the signatories have authority to authorise debits on the account — supported by a resolution or signing authority where appropriate.
- The account details of the business account to be debited.
- Clear amount, frequency and collection date terms, exactly as you will collect.
If a dispute is ever raised, your evidence is the registered record at the bank plus this underlying mandate. A well-executed juristic mandate with proof of signing authority is difficult to repudiate.
Are there limits or bank-specific rules?
Banks apply their own validation when registering mandates, and treatment of certain account types can differ between banks. Some accounts may not accept mandate registration at all, in which case the registration request is rejected and you would need to agree an alternative with the payer — for example an EFT debit order or a credit-push arrangement. Confirm specifics with your sponsoring bank or payment provider rather than assuming uniform behaviour across banks.
How does Kwik handle business collections?
Kwik supports registered mandate collections, so you can register mandates against juristic and multi-signatory accounts, collect in the early processing window and track collections for available funds — all alongside your DebiCheck and EFT collections for individual payers. See RM vs DebiCheck vs EFT for guidance on routing each payer type to the right rail.
Related topics
Registration and Notification
How mandate registration works with the payer's bank, how and when payers are notified of a registered mandate, and what happens if the payer objects.
Mandate Lifecycle
Follow a registered mandate from initial registration through amendments, suspensions and cancellation, including the statuses returned at each step.